LOS ANGELES >> The likelihood of the International Olympic Committee awarding both the 2024 and 2028 Olympic Games later this year continued to gain momentum Friday.

In the clearest sign yet that Los Angeles could be assured in the coming months of hosting a third Olympic Games, the International Olympic Committee announced that a working group studying whether to award both the 2024 and 2028 Games this year will present a report to the IOC executive board at a June 9 special meeting.

IOC President Thomas Bach will chair the special meeting at the IOC’s headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland. Bach has been pushing the plan to award both Los Angeles and Paris Olympic Games this year and appointed the working group of the IOC’s four vice presidents in March to study the idea.

The IOC vice presidents “are pretty much a rubber-stamp organization for Bach at this point,” said Jules Boykoff, author of “Power Games: A Political History of the Olympics.”

A final proposal on awarding the 2028 Games this year could be presented to the full IOC at Candidature City Bid meeting in Lausanne on July 11-12.

The 2024 host city is scheduled to be announced on Sept. 13 in Lima, Peru.

“All the options are on the table, and this includes also the 2024/28 procedure and vote,” Bach said in March.

Los Angeles 2024 Chairman Casey Wasserman said last week that local officials could receive an update as early as this month on the results of the IOC vice presidents’ study. IOC Vice President Ugur Erdener is a member of the IOC 2024 host city evaluation commission that visited Los Angeles last week and Paris earlier this week.

Asked about the IOC’s Friday announcement of the special meeting, a Los Angeles 2024 spokesman said there was, “Nothing new from us.”

Angela Ruggerio, LA 2024’s chief strategy officer and a four-time Olympian in ice hockey, and Anita DeFrantz, LA 2024’s senior advise r for legacy, are both members of the IOC executive board. It is unclear if they would have to recuse themselves from 2024/2028 discussions at the June 9 special meeting.

The IOC 2024 host city evaluation commission will regroup at IOC headquarters later this month to complete its final assessment of the 2024 candidates. The IOC evaluation committee is scheduled to release a final report on the bids July 5.

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The evaluation commission will meet with the IOC and Los Angeles and Paris officials during the July 11-12 meeting. Los Angeles and Paris will also make presentations.

“We are in a very fortunate moment in time in the history of bids for the Olympic Games. In Los Angeles and Paris we have two excellent cities,” IOC evaluation commission chairman Patrick Baumann said during the Los Angeles visit.

IOC officials briefed both Los Angeles and Paris bid officials about the 2024/2028 possibility at the Sport Accord conference in Aarhus, Denmark, in April.

“The IOC sat down with both cities in Denmark at Sport Accord to explain the process they were going to go through,” Wasserman said. “I would expect sometime later in May or early June would be the time when they would be able to come back to us. But they just had the initial conversation with us.”

While continuing to insist that their focus is on landing the 2024 Games, Wasserman and Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said they are open to continuing the 2024/2028 dialogue with the IOC.

“I think any city would have to look at the terms of the rule change, what a 2028 award means,” Garcetti said. “But I’m a little unorthodox about this. I know Paris has at times said, ‘No, it’s ’24 or nothing.’ I really do believe in this movement. I will look at that at any given time. Our (bid) committee will look at that at any given time if the rules change.

“But I look at that as much for Paris as I look at it for L.A. That if you can create winners and, instead of so many losers, that’s good for the movement. And as I think the Olympic Movement re-assesses how bids are going to be done, we have a lot of good lessons to share. And I think the exciting thing for the possibility of 2024 and 2028, whether it’s us first and Paris second or vice versa, is the possibility of a partnership between two cities that are creating an Olympics at the same time. Because there’s going to be important lessons that we can pass on and vice versa for Paris.”

Paris officials have been less receptive to the possibility of hosting the 2028 Games.

“(2028) is not an option for us,” Tony Estanguet, Paris 2024’s co-chairman and an IOC member, told Reuters in March. “Our project is only feasible and guaranteed for 2024. The land to build the Olympic and Paralympic village is only available for 2024.

“This is the fourth bid by Paris, and we believe it is now or never. This is the last chance to see Paris bidding for the games. Afterwards, I think Paris and France will do it different things.”

Bach’s support of the 2024/2028 idea is seen by Olympic historians, economists and Olympic movement officials as an attempt to secure a high profile win by an IOC desperate for a global triumph after a string of corruption scandals and political, economic and public relations controversies.

Olympic historians, and international sports officials said it is unlikely that Bach would have gone public with the 2024/2028 possibility if it wasn’t what he wanted and if he didn’t think it would be supported by the vice presidents and later the full IOC.

Bach insists the move is driven by the strength of the Los Angeles and Paris’ bids.

“That we have two excellent candidates from two major Olympic countries, two candidatures which are embracing Olympic Agenda 2020 very much with the great use of existing facilities, with therefore very low investment budgets, with a modern approach to the games, with great attractivity for the youth,” Bach said in March, referring to the IOC’s self-proclaimed reform package that was supposed to make bidding and hosting the games more financially attractive to cities. “This is the position you like to be in. Even more so if you look at the world in this moment, where we can see a lot of instability, a lot of fragility, a lot of uncertainty. Where we can see many, many changes. Therefore, with this situation, we are in a comfortable position. Now it will be up to the working group how to best explore this positive situation and to see what it means.”